Here are some fab recommendations, which I have conveniently hooked up with Amazon, because who the hell wants to leave the couch anyway. If you order more than one thing, generally you either come out even (because there's no sales tax) or even do a little better. And you don't have to move. I love that.
The Making of a Chef
The Making of a Chef : Mastering Heat at...
Michael Ruhlman's journalistic infiltration of the Culinary Institute of America. This book manages to successfully capture the mystery involved not only in cooking but also in what drives people to excel in whatever they want to do best. If you don't know much about cooking, you will be baffled by some of the things they cook: bechamel, haricot vertes...but don't let it scare you away. Look them up on the internet and act like you knew it all along later.
Kitchen Confidential
Kitchen Confidential : Adventures in the...
What a great work - this guy writes so compactly, and even though he hates vegetarians, this is a book worth reading for its wit. If you are a strict vegetarian and/or easily offended, forget about it. But you'll be missing a very interesting book about cooking and the restaurant business in general (you'll never eat dead pasta again). He's crusty and self-aggrandizing, but he's also self-critical. It works.
Truly one of the best reference books we have when we want to try a new food (flax seeds?), figure out how long lettuce keeps in the fridge (about a week), or see the nutrient information on, say, walnuts. If you are a vegetarian or becoming one, this is an essential book.
Cookwise : The Hows and Whys of...
After a semester of Food Science class, I became interested in the hows and whys of baking in particular. This book was written by a food scientist (who has helped others, among them Fran Costigan, put together her cookbook). The goal of the book is to teach you what ingredients work where and how. The recipes are clear and each shows something about how the cooking process works, so that eventually you can put together your own stuff without a disaster (or, just learn how to cook). Not vegetarian, but recommended for all cooks or wannabe cooks.
The Cook's Bible : The Best of American...
I love Christopher Kimball and nearly all that he stands for. He's not a vegetarian, and I do hold that mildly against him, but he is the world's most curious cook, and his magazine, Cook's Illustrated is the best source in the world for finding out the best recipes for nearly anything because he is a nutburger who will make biscuits 47 times til he gets it just right. This book is an amalgamation of recipes from such time-trials, and is an interesting read and study of obsession at the very least. I made the chocolate ganache frosting from this book and Steven howled with delight.
150 Vegan Favorites: Fresh, Easy, and...
If you like Indian-type food, with cumin and mildly spicy, this book is terrific. Mainly a winter-cooking book, it has terrific recipes, all well thought out, mostly all single-pan (thank you, Jay), and while many have the same basics, they are all quite good. The lentil-potato-curry type stuff gets a fairly regular runaround in our house. One warning, though -- this guy is not much of a vegan baker, and the pumpkin scones, though tasty, were as rubbery as a film prop. Skip those and make everything else.
Great Good Desserts Naturally!
Easily the best vegan baking book around. This woman really knows her food science, and the recipes all turn out great. Some of them are time consuming, and you will have to shop for some ingredients like arrowroot (easily found), but the results are WORTH IT. Her coffee cake is so amazing I can't even believe it. An office full of carnivores who never knew it was a vegan cake ate it up like a pack of roaming wolves, and the basic vanilla cake would make even a small, fussy child enormously happy. Buy this if you want to try something different and have a little time.
Sweet & Natural : More Than 120...
A good book if you want to make tarts and also get some of the food science basics - great pains are taken to explain how things work. Not as great as Costigan, but I own both and happily so - her recipes are formulated well and the book contains a large selection of recipes including sorbets.
The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook : Secrets...
The best cookbook for general entertaining if you want to appear to be someone who can cook on a professional level. Ina Garten's recipes are very well formulated. For the Millenial End of the World, I made the spinach pie wrapped in phyllo dough (my first attempt set off the fire alarm - use a big casserole dish, because dripping butter can SMOKE!). It came out delicious both times (in spite of smoke abatement the first time). My guests were amazed. Me too. There is also a delicious roasted eggplant and red pepper dippy thing that came out amazing. The cookies are delicious and the shortbread is so versatile - one batch made plain, combined with nuts and dipped in chocolate and/or sandwiched makes guests believe you baked more than one kind of cookies. Kids like the chocolate dipped ones A LOT. Ms. Garten recently completed a terrific cookbook/advice book for entertaining as well. Again, not vegetarian, but there are many things a lacto-ovo can make, even if only for entertaining or a special occasion.
I just included this book because if you haven't read it you've really missed out on one of the best books ever written. A music-obsessed non-committal guy's life goes to hell. Not like anyone I know!
Dr. Dean Ornish's Program for Reversing...
The book that literally changed my life. I was looking for something to read about vegetarianism and a search produced this unlikely book. I read it during my 3 month busriding expedition whilst saving for my new car. I stopped going to Del Taco because I didn't have a car. I started making lunches. And I started paying attention to everything this man had to say. My husband made fun of me (neither of us generally gush about anyone in particular, so he should have known). He read the book. He stopped eating so much crap too. A well-written, well intentioned book by a guy who really wants to save the world.
The first of a brilliant trilogy (all listed here). There are ghosts, sheepmen, and it would have taken you at least 30 pages to realize that without being gimmicky Murakami manages to write a book in which no one but a cat has a name. Except I just ruined that part for you. Written in the style of Chandler, one of my favorite all time authors (see below), with pop culture references and plenty of standard Murakami obsessions with cooking and teenaged girls, it's an amazing delve into the inner workings of the mind.
Arguably the best book Murakami has produced, this book is fun and deep too. My favorite guy is has one arm, but somehow manages to slice sandwiches (how does he hold the bread together?). Another "detectivey" novel that plays out like a well written action movie complete with quirky characters and the standard teenaged girl riding shotgun.
Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of...
The trilogy stops here, in what is one of the weirdest books I have ever read. This book took me longer to get into than the others, but once I delved I read feverishly to the end. Half philosophy book, you can feel Murakami blazing a trail between the conscious and subconscious (literally - a good portion of the book is underground) mind. No standard teener, but the requisite darkness and unfamiliarity that characterizes the deep, dark innards of the mind. Science fiction, or is it? --
Raymond Chandler : Later Novels and...
"Dead men are heavier than broken hearts" Chandler writes in the Big Sleep. Oh how I love him. His tight writing style, his amazing wit, Marlowe's buddhist leanings. I positively gush at the thought. Murakami was taught by the master. Read the early stories first - from the book listed below, then work up to The Lady and the Lake. Doesn't matter if you've seen the movies, you have to read this prose. A God who slaved for Standard Oil, married a woman he stole from a piano player who was a lot older than he, a lover of cats, and a writer who made Los Angeles exciting. Ah.
Stories and Early Novels : Pulp...
The best of Hammett - or, at least, the best unrecognized Hammett. And a damned shame too, because Ned Beaumont is such a pig, such an antihero, such an unusual main character that he deserves to be read. There's at least one "amazing escape" scene I enjoyed at least as ridiculous and amusing and great as vintage James Bond.
The Alchemist : A Fable About Following...
I reluctantly read this book after an acquaintance sent it to me, insisting I must read it and he would send it right over. I have always been the adamantly cynical, anti-newager type, but I have to say that I enjoyed this adamantly new age book in which I learned some sort of allegorical philosophy reminders (go after your passion and the world conspires to aide you type thing) while a shepherd finds his treasure. I have since read, in several Hollywood-type interviews with stars, enough babble that sounds straight from the book to be convinced that this book, sent to me by a Hollywood-type, made its way through all of showbusiness. Quietly.
